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Malaysian Cinema, Asian Film is a detailed study of the complexities of the film industry and film culture in Malaysia. Using cross-cultural analysis approach- DER HEIDE FILM WILLIAM VAN CINEMA, ASIAN MALAYSIAN es, the book characterizes Malaysia as a pluralist so- FILM FILM ciety, consisting of a multiplicity of cultural identities. Malaysia’s film culture, which encompasses films dis- CULTURE CULTURE tributed and shown in the country as well as local IN TRANSITION IN TRANSITION production, similarly exhibits a remarkable hetero- geneity, particularly evident in the impact of Indian and Hong Kong films on Malaysian audiences and Malaysian filmmakers. The book departs from traditional studies of national cinema by accentu- ating the intercultural and intertextual MALAYSIANMALAYSIAN links between Malaysian films and Asian (as well as European and American) film practices. Detailed analyses of a selec- tion of Malaysian films highlight their CINEMA,CINEMA, cultural complexities, while noting that the films are almost totally concerned with the Malay rather than the Malay- ASIANASIAN FILMFILM sian experience. This tension between cultural inclusivity and ethnic exclusivity lies at the heart of this cinema. William van der Heide teaches in the Film Studies Program at the University of Newcastle, Australia. BorderBorder CrossingsCrossings andand ISBN 90-5356-519-1 NationalNational CulturesCultures WILLIAM VAN DER HEIDE 9 789053 565193 WILLIAM VAN DER HEIDE Amsterdam University Press AmsterdamAmsterdam UniversityUniversity PressPress WWW.AUP.NL Malaysian Cinema, Asian Film Film Culture in Transition General Editor: Thomas Elsaesser Double Trouble: Chiem van Houweninge on Writing and Filming Thomas Elsaesser, Robert Kievit and Jan Simons (eds.) Writing for the Medium: Television in Transition Thomas Elsaesser, Jan Simons and Lucette Bronk (eds.) Between Stage and Screen: Ingmar Bergman Directs Egil Törnqvist The Film Spectator: From Sign to Mind Warren Buckland (ed.) Film and the First World War Karel Dibbets and Bert Hogenkamp (eds.) A Second Life: German Cinema’s First Decades Thomas Elsaesser (ed.) Fassbinder’s Germany: History Identity Subject Thomas Elsaesser Cinema Futures: Cain, Abel or Cable? The Screen Arts in the Digital Age Thomas Elsaesser and Kay Hoffmann (eds.) Audiovisions: Cinema and Television as Entr’Actes in History Siegfried Zielinski Joris Ivens and the Documentary Context Kees Bakker (ed.) Ibsen, Strindberg and the Intimate Theatre: Studies in TV Presentation Egil Törnqvist The Cinema Alone: Essays on the Work of Jean-Luc Godard 1985-2000 Michael Temple and James S. Williams (eds.) Micropolitics of Media Culture: Reading the Rhizomes of Deleuze and Guattari Patricia Pisters and Catherine M. Lord (eds.) Malaysian Cinema, Asian Film Border Crossings and National Cultures William van der Heide Amsterdam University Press To Julia Front cover illustration: Poster for Hang Tuah (1956) Courtesy of the National Archives of Malaysia Back cover illustration: Poster for XX Ray II (1995) Courtesy of the National Film Development Corporation Malaysia (finas) Cover design: Kok Korpershoek, Amsterdam Lay-out: japes, Amsterdam isbn 90 5356 580 9 (hardcover) isbn 90 5356 519 1 (paperback) nugi 922 © Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 2002 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, me- chanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permis- sion of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Contents Acknowledgments 9 Introduction 11 Panggung Wayang; Malaysian Cinema, Asian Film 11 The Realities of Film Viewing 12 The Scope of this Study 21 Chapter 1: Border Crossings 25 Introduction 25 National Cinema and Genre 27 Cross-cultural Analysis 29 Transtextuality 32 The Hamburger Western 36 The Samurai Film and the Noodle Western 38 The Samurai Film and the Hamburger Western 39 The Sword Film and the Spaghetti Western 41 The Spaghetti Western 44 The Martial Arts Film and the Chop Suey Western 47 The Stunt Film and the Curry Western 51 Conclusion 54 Chapter 2: Malaysian Society and Culture 57 Introduction 57 Identity 58 National Identity and National Culture 60 Malaysian Identity 65 Pre-colonial Malaysia 66 Foundational Narratives 71 Colonial Malaysia 77 Parsee Theatre and Bangsawan 81 Postcolonial Malaysia 87 The National Cultural Policy and its Consequences 95 Conclusion 101 6 Malaysian Cinema, Asian Film Chapter 3: Film in Malaysia 105 Introduction 105 National Cinema 106 National Cinema Texts 109 The Film Industry and Film Culture in Malaysia 116 Early Film-going in Malaya 118 The British in Malaya 119 Origins 123 Laila Majnun, India and Indonesia 124 Shaw Brothers 129 The Golden Age 132 The Indian Connection 133 The Studio System 134 P. Ramlee 138 Indian Cinema 141 Hong Kong Cinema 141 Indonesian Cinema 144 The Decline 145 The Revival 149 Government Assistance and Controls 150 Hong Kong Cinema 156 Indian Cinema 158 Conclusion 159 Chapter 4: Malaysian Cinema 161 Introduction 161 The Indian Cinema of the 1950’s 162 Hujan Panas 166 Penarik Beca 170 Hang Tuah 176 Semerah Padi 183 Hang Jebat 191 Ibu Mertua-ku 198 Matinya Seorang Patriot 205 Fenomena 212 Selubung 218 Contents 7 Perempuan, Isteri &... 225 Sembilu 233 Conclusion 240 Conclusion 241 Notes 249 Filmography 265 Bibliography 271 Index 293 Acknowledgments Most of the research work for this project was undertaken in Malaysia in Feb- ruary-March 1994 and August-September 1994, when I was a Visiting Fellow at the Asian History Centre, Australian National University and on study leave from the University of Canberra. Some follow up work took place in Kuala Lumpur in May 2001, supported by a grant from the University of New- castle. I therefore thank the following persons (and their institutions): Dr. Satendra Nandan, University of Canberra; Dr. Ian Proudfoot, Asian History Centre, Australian National University; Dr. Samsudin Abd. Rahim, Communications Department, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia; Dr. R. Karthigesu, Communi- cations Program, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang; Mr. Abdul Rahman, Mr. Norshah bin Thamby and Mr. Mohd. Zulkifli bin Ab. Wahab from the National Film Development Corporation Malaysia (FINAS); the film directors Dato’ L. Krishnan, Jamil Sulong, Aziz Osman and Adman Salleh; the film producer, Ruhani Abdul Rahman; K. S. Maniam, novelist and academic at the Universiti Malaya; Hamsah Hussin, writer and critic; Baharudin Latif, film critic; and to Raja Ahmad Alauddin, film director and academic, for our stimulating con- versations in Malaysia and Australia. I particularly want to thank Raimy Ché-Ross for valuable assistance in translating the dialogue of the un-subtitled Malaysian films and for perceptive comments on the cultural significance of aspects of these films. Finally, my gratitude to Professor Philip Bell, University of New South Wales, for the faith he retained in me over the many years that it took for my re- search project to assume its present form; furthermore, Professor Bell im- proved the arguments herein by his comments and questions. I am grateful to Allen & Unwin for allowing me to use four diagrams from Wang Gungwu’s Community and Nation in chapter 2. The photos for figures 5, 10 and 11 were taken by Julia van der Heide. The other illustrations have been provided courtesy of the National Film Corporation Malaysia (FINAS) and the National Archives of Malaysia. The publication of this book would not have been possible without the very positive response to the manuscript by the series editor, Thomas Elsaesser, University of Amsterdam and the support of Jaap Wagenaar, from Amsterdam 10 Malaysian Cinema, Asian Film University Press. The English Department, University of Newcastle gener- ously contributed to the cost of publication. An earlier version of chapter 1 was published as ‘Boundary Riding: Cross- Cultural Analysis, National Cinema and Genre’ in Social Semiotics, 5: 2, 1995, pp. 213-237; part of chapter 4 has been published as ‘Semerah Padi: A Pro- posal for a New Nation’ in Asian Cinema, 12: 1, 2001, pp. 3-13. Introduction ‘Di Mana Kan Ku Chari Ganti’ (Where can I find a replacement) (the title of a P. Ramlee song in Ibu Mertua-ku, 1962). Panggung Wayang; Malaysian Cinema, Asian Film ‘Panggung Wayang’ is a frequently used phrase for cinema and cinema-going in Malaysia. It is made up of two words: ‘Panggung,’ meaning a theater, a stage and even an audience, and ‘Wayang,’ which refers to the traditional shadow puppet theater of the Malay world.1 Wayang is sometimes also com- bined with the word ‘Gambar,’ which means a picture, a drawing or a photo- graph, to signify a movie. It is reputed that P. Ramlee (of whom more below) constructed a word ‘Pawagam,’ made from the first few letters of Panggung, Wayang and Gambar, to designate the cinema (Ché-Ross, 1996), but it appears not to have caught on, although I did see an old Shaw Brothers cinema in Melaka called Pawagam Rex.2 However, Panggung Wayang is a particularly ap- propriate conjunction, because it combines the two major influences on film in Malaysia: the ‘Bangsawan’ (Malay opera) theater tradition, which provided personnel and stories to the Malaysian cinema, and the shadow puppet theater, a proto-cinematic medium that has been so important in Malay cul- ture, even though its influence on the cinema is quite indirect. Both of these theatrical forms will be elaborated upon in chapter 2. The book’s title, Malaysian Cinema, Asian Film, not only identifies the focus of interest of the argument, it also highlights an important distinction between cinema and film culture. The term cinema, in association with a ‘qualifier’ like Malaysian, Indian, Asian, Malay, Tamil, Cantonese or feminist, refers to a spe- cific film production aggregate based on national, regional, ethnic, linguistic, gender or any other identity characteristic (the limitations of some of these cat- egorizations are discussed in chapter 3). On the other hand, film culture or film refers to the collective film experience of a particular community both synchronically and diachronically.